France’s Pasteur Institute has fully sequenced the Andes virus found in a French passenger from the MV Hondius cruise ship.

No cases of Andes hantavirus have been confirmed in the U.S. The eighteen American ship passengers are being monitored at the quarantine unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

A 2020 NEJM study of the 2018 to 2019 Epuyén outbreak showed that Andes virus spread from one zoonotic introduction into four generations of human infection, causing 34 cases and 11 deaths. The findings are newly relevant after WHO reported an ANDV cluster linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship,

Most hantaviruses are not known to spread between people. Andes virus is the exception. After the initial spillover from infected rodents, it is the only hantavirus with well-documented person-to-person transmission.

In 2018, health authorities in southern Argentina were scrambling, trying to understand what had caused nearly three dozen people in the tiny village of Epuyen to fall gravely ill. By the end of the outbreak,

The Andes virus strain linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak is the only hantavirus capable of spreading person to person, the WHO says.

Officials say proper contract tracing and isolation efforts can stop the hantavirus outbreak from becoming a “large epidemic.”

A Canadian traveller has tested positive for hantavirus after departing from a cruise ship linked to an outbreak. Health officials clarified that while the situation is concerning, hantavirus poses different risks compared to respiratory viruses like Covid-19,

A hantavirus outbreak linked to the cruise ship MV Hondius has seen eight passengers test positive for the Andes virus, a strain known to spread between humans. Three lives have been lost so far. While the risk to the general public is low,